


High School

by ArsonEmbre



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsonEmbre/pseuds/ArsonEmbre
Summary: Simply a love story, because all they’ve ever done was love one another.
Relationships: Hayner/Seifer (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	High School

**Author's Note:**

> My heart is so goddamn full right now. I love them so much. I hope reading this brings you as much joy as writing it has for me.
> 
> Happy Birthday, Mar ❤️

It started with a kiss on the front steps of the school.

For most of their childhood, the two boys had been acquainted through rivalry. Hayner would have liked to blame their fathers for this—they were the ones who had put the idea in their heads that everything should be a competition anyway—but they all had their part in it. Hayner didn’t have to go as far as he did and neither did Seifer. It was something that they’d both admitted.

Over the years, they did nothing but compete. Occasionally, they had decent conversations sprinkled with compliments, but they were very few and far in between. If you had asked Hayner about Seifer, he may have said something along the lines of  _ he’s just a jerk who’s obsessed with Struggle _ . And if you had asked Seifer, he would have said  _ he’s the guy I’m always fighting with, but he’s too chicken to Struggle. _

The jab never got to him before. There must have been something about being one of the youngest in all new territory that allowed the comment to get under his skin in his freshman year. He saw that there was a team for it in high school, and he wouldn’t have any plans the day of tryouts. To shut Seifer up, he signed up. Hayner very quickly realized that the coaches expected him to be in shape  _ before  _ trying out, or to at least have a bit of experience, and would not take pity on some fifteen year old kid with a dream born out of spite. After getting the wind knocked out of him, battered and bruised up by existing team members, and a particularly nasty scrape on his cheek from sliding against the ground, he was dismissed. The coach had told him that he’d never seen anyone more bullheaded, but praised his determination and endurance. This didn’t stop him from walking the halls with his head hung low.

He’d all but collapsed on the front steps, taking in slow, shallow breaths to give his ribs time to recover. It hurt to breathe, to lift his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Hayner was so close to admitting that Seifer was right. He was weak and chicken and so very stupid for thinking that he could join the team. Seifer had been training with his dad all his life; Hayner would play baseball with a sock-covered tennis ball and a rolling pin with his father in the backyard. They were not the same. Trying to compete with him had done nothing but highlight Seifer’s ability and reveal many of his own flaws. Hayner  _ almost _ decided he was done competing with him.

Until Seifer showed up with bandages, a couple of granola bars, and a bottle of water. With a frown, he’d forced him to catch his breath, eat and drink before patching him up. The brief flash of a smile when he’d said  _ good as new _ almost felt like a trick, like the exhaustion was getting to him more than he’d initially thought. But something told him otherwise. Something told Hayner to ask why. Why was Seifer there? Why did he put in the effort to help him when, for so long, they were supposed to hate each other? It was how they had been bred: fight, lose, get better, and win at the cost of any possible friendship. Because there were times when a seven year old Seifer would share his snack with him, right? There were times when Hayner would giggle at his antics. There were times where they would sing the same cartoon openings and compliment each other on what they wanted to be when they grew up. It always happened right before they were separated and harshly scolded by the men in their lives.

Every time they’d tried to make it work, there was someone right on their heels to tell them no. But at school, there was no one there to stop them, no one there to stoke the dying embers of their rivalry. So when Seifer told him that he’d never really hated him, he believed him. And he agreed. When Seifer looked him in the eye and gave him a genuine compliment, “You were  _ great _ out there…” he’d smiled. He believed him.

Neither of them remembered who had leaned in first. But their lips did meet, and he vividly remembers being painfully out of breath again.

Every single one of their friends were jaws-on-the-floor shocked to see them being sort of friendly with one another: the taller boy loudly mentioning that he would text him right before they parted to join their own tables at breakfast. Pence wanted to know what, Olette wanted to know how, and Roxas—with a disapproving wrinkle in his nose—wanted to know  _ why _ . Hayner had shrugged and told them that they’d found something that worked. 

What worked for them was staying cordial throughout the school day and finding a spot for themselves after school to spend their time together, away from the curious eyes and the condescending voices. They were free to compliment each other as much or as little as they liked, free to tease one another about how red their faces got after yet another kiss. Neither of them really cared that they had to hide what they had, or that it didn’t have a name yet. They just enjoyed what had developed between them, riding on the high they got from having a secret all their own.

Sophomore year was good to Hayner. He got taller, his voice got a little deeper, and his acne had begun to clear up. To top it all off, Seifer’s confidence and compliments had rubbed off on him by that time. He had unknowingly attracted the attention of a few girls that wanted to be a little more than friends. He didn’t notice at first, taking Seifer’s jokes about being jealous completely at face value. Seifer had nothing to be jealous of, not when he practically had it all with a fan club twice the size of Hayner’s sixth period class. Hayner wasn’t sure how he felt about girls anyway. They were pretty and they smelled nice...but that was about it. He would rather kiss Seifer, and would tell him that every time.

The jokes eventually stopped being jokes. Seifer would start to frown and sneer every time a girl approached, much to Hayner’s confusion. He had caught on to the fact that the girls were interested in him, but he wasn’t interested in any of them. To go out with any of them would mean that he couldn’t kiss Seifer anymore, and the fear of losing something he held so close was more than the sliver of an ego boost he got when a classmate would bat her eyelashes at him. 

Everything came to a screeching halt on a Monday morning. Seifer told him again that he would text him; Hayner smiled and told him that he’d better. Before he could turn to join his friends, Seifer had grabbed his chin and kissed him. It couldn’t have lasted more than a second, but it had happened.

In the cafeteria.

In broad daylight.

Where  _ everyone  _ could see.

Hayner couldn’t hear anything past the rapid beating of his heart in his ears after it happened, but he watched Seifer mouth the words  _ I’ll see you later _ before going to sit with his friends. Hayner let out a shaky breath as he carried his tray to his table on wobbly legs, eyes clinging to the tabletop as his friends stared.

There were so many stares after that day. People stared at them in the halls, at breakfast, at lunch, in the one class that they shared. The attention was awkward, more so than before, and every single day Hayner longed for the days where they could be alone in their spot and talk about nothing and kiss and laugh. But at least the girls stopped paying attention to him.

Everyone got bored within three months. No one cared anymore. The sight of the two together was commonplace now. No one was thrown at the sight of Seifer leaning down to kiss him or Hayner shyly slipping his hand into the other boy’s and giving it a light squeeze of excitement. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore, nor had there been in the first place. He and Seifer could have their spot  _ and  _ they could be themselves in public. He liked it. Being a thing was the best thing ever.

Things picked up again after Seifer’s evening Struggle practice. Hayner stuttered and stumbled over his words when he’d asked the other out. Officially. Sort of. His exact words were  _ Can I be your boyfriend _ , to which Seifer raised a brow at him. “Were we not already…?”

Hayner had never felt so stupid in his life. Seifer kissed him again, chuckling as he breathed out a very quiet yes. And he thought a label would change things, that it would lead to something wildly developing between them, but it didn’t. Seifer still made fun of him, upgrading chicken to chickenwuss, and teased him about things. Seifer still held his hand and kissed him in the halls. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. He loved being Seifer’s boyfriend. He begged his mom to let him get Seifer some sort of present, and that came in the form of a black beanie. After that, seeing him wear the hell out of it made him so proud.

He told his mother first, who was extremely confused, but happy for him. She’d made a joke or two about him seeming happier, and he told her that he truly was. He’d never enjoyed fighting with Seifer. After an hour of explaining that in several different ways, his father understood this as well. He finally started saying nice things about Seifer and happily welcomed him into his home. Hayner’s living room became their new spot, and things were good for a long while.

On a Sunday evening, before Hayner’s mother came to shoo him out, Hayner whispered a very soft  _ I love you.  _ After five whole minutes of laughing over the fact that Seifer nearly choked on his own saliva, he said it back. Hayner felt on top of the world.

Seifer...did not have the same luck with his parents. His father was not accepting of his new relationship. Not because he was too young, not because it involved his longtime rival,  _ not  _ because Hayner’s family wasn’t as well off as theirs. It was because Hayner was a boy, and boys aren’t supposed to kiss boys. This time, his mother wasn’t enough to calm his anger. For the first time in his life, Seifer saw his parents fight. They screamed and they yelled until they couldn’t anymore. It lasted until the summer, and in the end, his mother dealt the final blow with divorce papers. It was the final nail in the coffin that Seifer’s family had wound up in, and his father left without bothering to look him in the eye and say goodbye.

This was what Seifer had told him through choked sobs and tears the day he’d finally let it out. He’d been smiling and laughing through it all until he broke. Hayner held him and made him promise to never hold anything in like that again. If Seifer couldn’t talk to anyone else, he could talk to Hayner about everything, the way that they always had. They were boyfriends. They were supposed to be there for one another. 

That day, his tears tasted like salt. 

Over the Summer months, Hayner got his very first job as a cashier at an ice cream parlor and Seifer got his license. During Hayner’s shifts, he would sneak to text Seifer updates about his day, and how excited he was about getting his first paycheck, even though that wouldn’t come for another two weeks. After, Seifer would pop up and offer him a ride home. It very quickly became their routine, each drive consisting of a sleeping Hayner or a rambling one. However, whether he was snoozing or complaining, Seifer always made sure to steal a kiss or two from his boyfriend before he left the car.

The day Hayner got paid, he spent over half his earnings buying a custom made Struggle bat necklace. It was made with real gold and was engraved with the letters H. S.

“Is it…” Seifer squinted at it. “High school?”

If it wasn’t for the cute, puzzled look on his face, Hayner would have ripped it right out of his hands. “It stands for Hayner and Seifer, you moron.” There was a short argument about whether they should have been listed as initials or as H + S. Seifer made too harsh of a joke, and the faux anger became real. Only for a beat. The second he noticed, he apologized. And after a couple more kisses and a gentle tickle at his sides, Hayner forgave him.

That was supposed to be the last of their arguments. They had put the fighting behind them years ago. Something changed when their junior year started. Seifer found out he was being moved to the Varsity Struggle team. He had looked so happy, and Hayner was  _ so _ happy for him. He swore to go to all of his games and support him no matter what. Instead of thanking him like he would have a year ago, he made a snide comment—intended to be a joke—and gave him a kiss on the nose. It took him a little longer to let his boyfriend know that that had actually hurt him, and it took two minutes too long before Seifer offered a real apology. Hayner did not forgive him as easily, but he did forgive him.

A couple months into school, Seifer stopped pushing away the people in his fanclub and his friend group doubled in a blink. A strange feeling developed in Hayner as one of his groupies got a little too close. Her name was Rinoa. One day, Seifer started calling her his best friend, and it was becoming harder to remember what life was like without seeing his arm wrapped almost protectively around her shoulder. After a while, he’d stopped looking. He didn’t want to accuse anyone of anything he had no proof of. It helped that whenever Hayner approached him, Rinoa would slip out from under Seifer’s arm and flash him a big smile, as if she knew her place and refused to overstep.

Hayner didn’t hate Rinoa at all. He just became jealous of her. It was something that he was very ashamed to admit to his friends on a Wednesday evening before his work shift, but he did it. They supported him, hugged him, and validated him. Roxas was the one to urge him to sit and talk to Seifer about it. Knowing the grudge that Roxas still held against Seifer after all this time, it meant something to him that one of his best friends still chose what was best for him over his own personal feelings. They all wanted him to be happy, to be fair to Seifer as well. So he listened.

The talk they eventually had did a world of good. When they were finally alone again, on the ride home from Hayner’s job, he brought it up. There was a five minute period where the tension between them was rapidly building and Hayner didn’t know why. It wasn’t until Seifer made a very rude comment that Hayner put his foot down and raised his voice. It shocked Seifer out of whatever funk he was in, and he had pulled over on the side of the road. He took off his seatbelt, slowly turned to Hayner, and explained everything. He told him that the divorce had been finalized, and that his mother had reverted to her maiden name. He told him that she was pressuring him into getting his own last name changed to  _ her _ maiden name, and Hayner stumbled over the pronunciation a couple of times. He told him that the attention people gave him as a Varsity Struggle member helped because it felt like his home life was falling apart. He told him that Rinoa was his mother’s friend’s child who was also coping with an even messier divorce, and that was  _ all they were _ . Seifer only ever kissed one boy; Rinoa kissed girls. And that was that.

Hayner forgave him, on the condition that they communicate with each other more. Hayner promised to speak up about the things that were bothering him and Seifer promised to keep his misplaced anger in check. That night, Hayner received a kiss on his knuckles before leaving the car. It made him blush all the same.

The rest of the year was...about as normal as it could be. They still had their arguments and Hayner took more opportunities to raise his voice, not that he was always in the right. Few times, Hayner was dead wrong and his friends had been very blunt about that. But they always forgave each other in the end.

Senior year felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Seifer had grown louder, more arrogant, a carbon copy of every other jock on the team. He apologized less and made many more jokes that sometimes went below the belt. Chickenwuss graduated to chicken shit, and each time he said it, it felt like splinters being shoved beneath Hayner’s fingernails. Hayner had spent the majority of junior year blaming his behavior on the divorce and the stress of his home life, but he refused to keep accepting that as an excuse. Seifer needed to chill out and go back to being the jerk he’d fallen for, not the jerk he was slowly coming to despise.

Everything came to a stop. The car rides home from his job, their private hangouts, the playful teasing, the hand holding, and eventually the kisses too. It got to a point where, when Seifer made a comment about “his boyfriend”, Hayner  _ may  _ have insinuated that he acted like he was dating the entire Struggle team instead. That was the nice way of putting it. His real comment involved lips needing to be surgically removed from a couple of asses, and it earned him a nasty look from the taller blond.

_ What the fuck is your problem? _

It was their worst argument yet. Voices were raised, shots were thrown, and feelings were hurt. Except this time, Hayner felt like he couldn’t stop. Every time he would get the sense that things were going too far, Seifer would inevitably say something else and Hayner would take it a step farther. So Seifer took it even further, until they were screaming and insulting each other the entire ride home. It was the first time they’d been alone together in who remembered how long and they were at each other’s throats. It was the first time since  _ childhood _ that Seifer had made Hayner cry. When they arrived at his house, Seifer didn’t shut the engine off like he usually would have. He kept his gaze on the windshield.

_ Get out _ .

Hayner sat and stared at someone he didn’t recognize, until the words were repeated in a louder, harsher tone. He sucked his teeth as he slipped out of his seatbelt.

_ I’m done. Fuck this and fuck you. _

Those words were hissed out a week before Seifer’s next game. He spent the first two days being angry, avoiding Seifer in the halls and asking his mother to drop him off and pick him up from work. He spent the weekend out with Pence, Olette, and Roxas, his phone turned off and hidden away in his desk drawer. The time he spent with them was fun, and he felt bad for letting Seifer become the center of his universe. It was a Saturday when the four of them sat on the beach together, reminiscing about old times while skillfully avoiding every mention of Seifer. That didn’t mean the boy didn’t cross his mind, and that he wasn’t still upset over what happened. Two more days passed, and Hayner accidentally caught Seifer’s eye in the morning class that they shared. He quickly turned his attention back to their teacher’s speech, never having been more interested in dead poets in all his life. After class, he sped out of the room and didn’t look back.

The day of the game arrived, the one that would decide a lot of the Struggle team’s futures. Seifer had a lot riding on this game, and Hayner knew that. But this one time, he couldn’t bring himself to go. When his mother asked him if he would be attending the game, he simply shook his head and told her he wasn’t feeling well. Hayner buried himself beneath his sheets, listening to the sound of his broken heart pound in his ears as he tried to imagine what the game would have looked like. If he had gone, would Seifer still have looked for him in the crowd? Would he still have given him a wink and a smile? Would his presence have mattered at all?

The next day, Hayner returned to school. Everything was different. A good number of Seifer’s fanclub had vanished. The boy’s head hung low as he carried himself through the halls on crutches. Hayner felt his heart jump into his chest at the sight of Rinoa carrying his books, putting in his locker combination, and sorting his things for him. Guilt was what finally made him approach the other boy, hefting his backpack over his shoulder and taking his books into his arms. “I got it,” he assured Rinoa quietly, perking up a bit at the light that had returned to Seifer’s eyes at the sight of him.

On the way to his class, Seifer very quietly explained that he was on crutches because he’d sprained his ankle at the Struggle match. That he couldn’t focus at all that past week, and Hayner’s absence from the game had messed with his head so badly that he couldn’t sleep. He apologized over and over again with many more promises to be better to Hayner. And although Hayner still loved him with all his heart, he did not forgive him.

_ You’ve been saying the same shit for a year now. I’m tired of it. If you want this to work, then you need to show me just how bad you wanted. _

And he did. When his ankle healed, the first thing he did was stroll into the cafeteria with his head held high and his hands full of roses. The gesture caught the eyes of everyone at breakfast, and Hayner felt a little forced to accept it. The cheers and catcalls made him extremely anxious, so he’d smiled and thanked him just to get it all to stop. The gesture was appreciated, but it was a little too much. Grand gestures and flashy presents had never been their thing. He prefered the peace and quiet, the kisses, the more private exchanging of presents. He made sure to tell him that when they were alone.

Seifer tried again. After parting from his fanclub to bring Hayner beneath the stairwell, he pulled out a ring. It was a simple gold band, no stone, no engravings.

“You don’t have to wear it just yet, or at all, but I want you to have this. I was a dick to you and forgiving myself ain’t easy. I know it’s gotta be harder for you. So, if you ever wear this, I want it to be because you believe me. I want it to be a promise between the two of us. Let’s never give up on each other, and never give each other a reason to want to. Okay...?”

Hayner accepted the ring. And after another month of watching Seifer return to the boy who had kissed him on the school steps, he put the ring on. Seifer was his boyfriend again.

The end of school came too quickly. Acceptance letters came in, the two skipped out on prom altogether, and the graduation photo that their parents took was a picture of Hayner, who once thought that he would never make it to graduation, holding his diploma up high in his trembling fist, his lips hopelessly attached to Seifer’s. It was printed out and framed, and it was the thing that kept Hayner going through college.

Because Seifer had lost the game all that time ago, he had missed out on the scholarship that he had been looking forward to for years. But he never once blamed Hayner for it despite the numerous times that Hayner told him that he could. This meant that Seifer would be attending college in Twilight Town, while Hayner had just barely skirted by with a scholarship for being left handed, and attended a school out of town. They promised not to let it change anything. They were still boyfriends. They were still in love. Hayner never wanted to kiss anyone else.

Four years passed, and Hayner returned home. Twilight Town may have been tiny, but he had had his share of adventures to cure his wanderlust for years to come. He missed home, and more importantly, he’d missed Seifer. Things were a little different. Seifer no longer wore his beanie, but still wore the necklace Hayner had gifted him so many years ago. Hayner had cut his hair, but still wore the ring that symbolized the promise they had made. He was greeted with a tight hug that lifted him off of the ground and a searing kiss that tasted like ice cream. When Seifer put him down, he grabbed his hand and took him for a walk.

Hayner didn’t expect to be led back to their high school. The building looked old and abandoned. Seifer told him that a new school had been built a few miles south, and that no one used this building anymore. They sat on the front steps. They started to reminisce on old times, loud barks of laughter echoing across the schoolyard as they argued about who had kissed who first. Naturally, this led to yet another kiss. And when he pulled away, it took him a few seconds to notice the opened ring box in Seifer’s hands.

_ All my life, I’ve only ever wanted you. So let’s get married. _

Hayner accepted, because he was still very much in love with him. Because he’d promised to never give up on him. Because, for the rest of his life, he could only ever see himself kissing Seifer.


End file.
